He touched her in aunt's home
They are fathers only in name. Two men - a biological father and a stepfather - were sentenced to jail and caning yesterday. Both had molested their daughters. The stories below recount the girls' suffering and humiliation.
For six long years, the two teenage siblings hid a dark and painful secret.
They remained silent because they feared the adult who had betrayed their trust.
Their biological father had left the family and their mother married a lorry driver in 2007.
But instead of protecting his two stepdaughters, he molested them and insulted their modesty by secretly taking videos of them showering.
Yesterday, justice caught up with the man, 41, who cannot be named to protect the victims' identities.
He was sentenced to 29 months' jail and six strokes of the cane after being convicted of five offences involving outrage of modesty and insulting of modesty.
The sisters found the courage to report the offences to the police only after the man moved out of the family's Yishun flat in early 2014 after a divorce.
Their nightmare had began in September 2008.
NAKED HUG:
The older sister, now 22, was between 15 and 17 years old when she was molested by her stepfather.
She decided to skip school one morning in September 2008 when she woke late, and was watching television in the living room.
While walking towards her bedroom, her stepfather, who was naked, hugged her from the rear for about two minutes.
She shouted for her mother, but nobody was home at that time.
The teen immediately called her mother about the incident.
The woman called her husband.
Court papers stated the man admitted to the act and told her that he "just could not control his desires".
FONDLED ON BED:
The girl's sister, who is two years younger, was molested by him when she was between 15 and 16 years old.
In 2010, she was asleep on a mattress in the living room at night when she felt someone touching her breasts over her T-shirt.
She took a peek and saw her stepfather fondling her.
Fearful, she pretended to sleep and he stopped about two minutes later.
SHOWN SHOWER VIDEO:
Even after his wife gave birth to their child at KK Women's and Children's Hospital in 2010, the man continued his misdeeds.
He once gave his older stepdaughter a lift home in his lorry after a hospital visit to his wife.
On the drive home, he took out his mobile phone and showed her a video of herself showering naked in the kitchen toilet.
She was shocked, but she decided to keep the incident to herself out of fear and because her mother had just given birth, court papers stated.
LIVING ROOM ATTACK:
One night in 2011, as the family slept in the living room of an aunt's flat in Marsiling Drive, the man struck again.
This time, he targeted the younger stepdaughter, and stopped only when his mother stirred in her bedroom.
SHOWER VIDEO:
In 2011, he was caught red-handed when he recorded the younger girl while she was taking a shower.
When she told her mother, she checked his phone, saw the video and confronted him. He apologised and promised he would not do it again, so she did not make a police report.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Kavita Uthrapathy said that the majority of the offences happened in the sanctity of the victims' own home where they were "entitled to feel safe and protected".
The prosecutor said: "(The) offences were committed over a period of time...
"This only goes to show that the accused is unremorseful and unrepentant. This is even after the accused was confronted by (his wife) about what he had done.
"He still continued to assault his stepdaughters."
The man said in his written plea intended for his two stepdaughters and his ex-wife's family that he was "remorseful" for hurting them.
He wrote: "Even though I have taken care of you for the last six years, I don't ask to be repaid. All I ask is this once to be forgiven."
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